The Firebrand Legacy Read online

  She was here. She was alive.

  Alviar was a centaur, a striking contrast of ink black and snow white. He had a clean, fully white hide on the horse part of him, and a long, tight white braid on his head. Dark stubble lined his jaw. A thick black shirt covered his chest, and at his waist fell the long, shining sword that all Navafortian knights wore.

  “First a trespasser, now a blackmailer,” Alviar said, approaching from the captain’s quarters. Carine shivered, not sure whether to bow or run. “Make note, Carine, you are only here due to mercy. It seems the young princes have taken pity on you. They could have made you return to shore.”

  Carine’s palms sweat. “To return to Esten would mean death, sir.”

  His hard face softened. “Come with me, Shoemaker. I imagine you might be hungry.”

  She walked alongside his horse-like body as he led her over the deck. Crew members scuttled about as Carine gazed up to the top of the mast.

  Didda’s father had been a sailor. She had never met him, but according to Didda, he had been known as Jon of the Mast for how deftly he climbed the mast to affix the sails. She wished some of his talents had passed down to her. Inheriting his adventurous spirit would have been helpful now, when only unknowns lay ahead.

  At a hatch near the far banister, Alviar stopped. “I have teaching to do,” he said, “and will not babysit you. Our food stores are downstairs, and there you’ll find a few extra sheets. The crew is using all the ship’s beds, so you will have to make do for yourself downstairs. It won’t be comfortable, but then again, you arrived uninvited.”

  She was ready to descend at the promise of food. “Thank you, sir.”

  Alviar nearly smiled before he clopped back to the captain’s quarters.

  Carine stared down into the dark. She had heard of stairs like these. They were built in richer parts of the kingdom to accommodate centaurs. As the half-man, half-horse creatures could not easily climb spiral stairwells, all official buildings made their stairs long and straight.

  In the hatch, light was scarce, but enough of the waking sun filtered through tiny windows up high to reveal the contents of the room. The first section was filled with food: boxes of vegetables, dried meat, fruit, and bread piled high.

  Carine squeezed her nails into her palms. There was food enough to last them a year. A pang struck her heart. Her parents were still starving—if they were even alive. She could hear the songs Mom would be singing if she were here. She could spot the water barrel that Didda would rush to open. Carine drank until her thirst was quenched.

  She rifled through the boxes until she found a great block of what had to be rare Wyrian cheese. With the sharp edge of her awl, she sliced off a piece and tore off the end of a loaf of bread. Hands full, she strode across the room and sat on a folded sheet under the stairs. In the darkness, she took a bite.

  Finally safe and fed, Carine expected to feel better. But she didn’t. Carine leaned back on the sheet and thought of her missing parents, trapped in a city so doomed that its leaders had abandoned it.

  So had she.

  10 Playing with Wishes

  She woke in the cellar. As nice as it was to eat her fill and sleep without fear of Selius, that moment between sleep and consciousness called to mind the terror of her parents—and Carine’s own terror that Mom and Didda were no longer alive to fear. Putting her nervous energy to use was the only way she could think to dampen her anxiety.

  “Thank the flames! Somebody else to talk to,” Prince David said, standing awkwardly when the servant Limly allowed Carine to enter the room.

  Prince Giles wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin and threw it over a plate of bones and the rind of a pear. “It wouldn’t seem so dull if you actually paid attention in your lessons.”

  Prince David turned, a half smile in his lips. “Carine, would you consider the lineage of the Wyrian kings to be dull?”

  Carine bowed, not willing to offend either prince by taking sides.

  Prince Giles shook his head. “The line of Wyrian kings is fascinating. You can see in their history that they were headed for doom. It wasn’t just the Heartless Ones that destroyed them.”

  “Oh, I see it now,” Prince David said. “Fascinating—tell me more.” He smiled at Carine.

  Prince Giles frowned.

  “I wanted to know if I could…help.” Carine blurted the words she had prepared, unsure what else to say in the presence of royalty.

  “You don’t happen to know anything about the Trifolk Wars, do you?” David asked from the table, lifting a piece of parchment with maps and red lines.

  “Only that that’s how Navafort was formed,” Carine answered, disappointed that she couldn’t be of better use.

  Sunlight shimmered through stained glass windows on the far wall. The colors danced over a four-poster bed with red velvet drapes. Two other beds lay set up nearby. A bookshelf on the side wall was filled with thick volumes and dazzling, exotic ceramics. Paintings as large as a wall of Didda’s shoes hung on every wall, looking as though they had just been hung there.

  Spying a pile of unsorted odds and ends in the corner, Carine offered to sort them, if only as a way to take her mind off two particular people she loved in Esten.

  David grinned at the pile’s mention and leapt off the chair. “Be my guest.”

  “David”—Giles rotated on his seat without compromising his posture—“will you finish your lessons for once?”

  David ignored him. “How do you plan on sorting them?” he asked Carine with a glint in his eye. “By object type or by effect?”

  Effect? Carine suddenly realized these were no normal objects; it was a wish pile.

  “This is my personal collection,” Prince David bragged. “Some of them I had to buy, but others were enchanted for me.”

  Carine took a step back. Once objects were enchanted, one could only guess their powers.

  “It’s the best collection in Navafort,” he said, but his boast didn’t impress Carine. “Want to see?”

  His Highness Prince David leaned forward, kicking the contents of the wish pile as he reached down. A gold bowl rolled a foot away from her. Carine backed up, careful not to let it touch her.

  Prince David produced a child’s black shoe, no longer than Carine’s finger, and held it on his wide and open palm. “Take it.” He grinned. “I found out what it does this morning.”

  Carine recoiled. Magic wasn’t a toy. Even princes’ authority couldn’t rival the twisted wonders of a dragon’s enchantments.

  The prince furrowed his eyebrows. “I’ll show you how it works first. You’re probably supposed to use the pure tear of a dove or something but…” He spat into the sole of the shoe and lifted it to his large ear. A smile spread across his lips, and he held the shoe out, so it nearly grazed her arms, which were popping up with goosebumps. “It’s the whale songs. You can hear them.”

  Suddenly, a figure rolled among the thick, white covers in a four-poster bed at the back of the room.

  The sudden movement made Carine jump, until she saw what it was. The back of a blond head appeared on the pillow, though the rest of the body was covered in blankets. Prince Marcel, during all this, was sleeping.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Prince David said. “He’s in mourning.”

  “As he says,” Prince Giles added. “Though Marcel should accept that the heir to the throne must make sacrifices.” Prince Giles stood from the table and took his seat at a desk by the door.

  “Here,” Prince David said, holding out the shoe again. “It’s amazing.”

  Carine shook her head. “No thank you.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. She should have stayed downstairs.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a wish object. You’ve done the wishpiles, right? I thought they had those all throughout Esten. That’s the beauty of magic. You can get it no matter how rich or poor you are.”

  That was not exactly comforting. Carine dug her nails into her palms, looking for some exc
use to escape. “I’ve seen the wishpiles, Your Highness. I just don’t participate.”

  Prince David cocked his head, light dancing in his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

  She shrugged. “Just because we have wishpiles in North Esten doesn’t mean everyone is foolish enough to partake.”

  “Foolish?”

  Carine broke eye contact. She’d gone too far, that much was clear. But instead of talking her way out of this one, maybe she could actually convince David to throw the enchanted items from the ship. She took a breath and decided to use the prince’s first name, as he’d requested, to put them on some semblance of the same plane. “Yes, David, foolish. You’re just as likely to drink enchanted water that will kill you as will heal you.”

  Prince Giles turned ever so slightly in his chair.

  David smiled, relieving Carine that she hadn’t offended him. “But that’s part of the fun. During Relief, I run around Esten and find out what happened to the wishpiles.”

  “Me too,” said Carine, though not for the same reason. She would sit in the local tavern and watch her neighbors explore their finds. She would scout out any items that she might have to avoid in the future, and listen for any vendors who planned to incorporate enchanted objects into their products. She, Didda, and Mom would quietly boycott those vendors.

  “They sell a lot of the best stuff to my family: purses that pour out wine, impenetrable shields—that kind of stuff,” Prince David said without a beat, still tossing that little shoe between his palms. “But they never bring the freaks in. Those are the ones I like to see.”

  “Those are the worst of all,” Carine said, though she couldn’t help but feel fascination when she reflected on some of the things she had seen. “One year a seamstress opened her purse and a baby monkey crawled out.”

  “A monkey?” He beamed. “Even I’ve never seen one of those in person. But that’s the thing: everybody always wants the never-ending money supply. Not me. I found my favorite enchanted purse over on the far side of South Esten. Some bakers were showing it off near one of the fountains. It had a coin inside, so you’d think you hit the jackpot. You could see it shining in there just waiting for you. But stick in your fingers and it’d bite them off.”

  “See? That’s what I’m talking about,” Carine said, but her disdain only thrilled him.

  “May my house burn to ashes,” he swore.

  “Did you try it?”

  “No.” He wiggled his fingers. “A local girl did, though. Lost her finger and her thumb.”

  “They’re terrible things, wishing piles.” Carine surveyed the wish objects scattered around the room. Enthusiastic or not, this prince didn’t keep organized.

  “No one hates the wishing piles, not really. Trust me, once you hear the whale songs—”

  “What about the girl without fingers?”

  “That’s why we test. It’s scientific, the way the wish vendors test. They put the coins in water, try on the shirts, empty out the purses—”

  “That’s fine, but the rules of enchantments are subtle,” Carine said. One purse could seem like a gem. When opened, it filled with water. But if you opened it and weren’t thirsty, it filled with sand. If you opened it when sad and used it to catch your tears, then it would produce a flower the next time you opened it, unless you met a certain level of thirst. This kind of discovery was hard to quickly pinpoint, and that was the general failure of the wish smiths that sought to quickly turn over their products.

  “Which is why I’m testing them.” Prince David’s eyes were alight.

  Carine’s stomach sank; she could no sooner convince him than she could steer this ship herself. She tried one last time. “All I know is you’re putting this ship in danger. But I guess I shouldn’t argue with a prince.”

  “You’re right.” His ears moved up when he smiled. He pointed over to Giles. “And that’s the prince you shouldn’t argue with.”

  Prince Giles, mouth straight, raised an eyebrow and turned back to his work.

  11 Something in the Skyline

  The armpits of her underdress were soaked through by the time Carine moved the last barrel into an acceptable place downstairs. She had always maintained the order of their shoe shop, and the disarray of the food storage area had been striking.

  She had given herself the task of organizing all unenchanted objects on the ship. The benefits of this job, as she saw it, would include frequent visits to the princes’ room, where the princes’ bickering amused her. Even if she couldn’t throw the enchanted objects overboard, she could learn from snippets of Alviar’s lessons. At home, beyond what little her parents taught her, she’d had no schooling at all.

  Another benefit was that Carine felt no guilt in helping herself to a small lunch from the inventory and luxuriating in whiffs of cinnamon sticks and rosemary sprigs.

  Her only trouble was the nagging, sinking guilt of leaving her parents, a feeling only amplified with every reminder of them.

  But she had to be careful even here. Carine shivered when she thought of how close she almost came to touching the enchanted shoe bowl. Even worse, princes that did not see the harm in blankets that smothered their users or weapons that burned the hands that held them would be ill-fitted to guard Navafort from the darkness that magic brought.

  It did not bode well for their voyage either. Didda always said that Granddad spoke of the seas as unforgiving and formidable. Add magic to the mix and their voyage would meet disaster.

  The hatch opened and sunlight poured in. Carine stood.

  The knighted centaur Alviar stepped down the first two stairs and surveyed the cellar. “You staggered the box lids…” Carine had moved the lids so they could access the food without moving the bins. “Impressive work.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I admit I may have underestimated you when you first arrived. I thought you were exploiting the situation, but now it’s clear that you are willing to work for your keep.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In that case, I’ll ask you to do us a favor. One of the ship hands has come down with a fever. I must ask you to work on the upper decks in his place.”

  Carine followed Alviar upstairs, where four crew members busily adjusted the mast on this sunny morning. It was unnerving: not a speck of land in any direction. The Vualtic Ocean reflected in a bright sky.

  A flying black creature soared across the heavens in Carine’s periphery. She ducked under her hands and shrieked.

  Alviar searched the skies and asked, “Afraid of birds, madam?”

  The creature turned slightly. It was a simple gull, silhouetted against the afternoon sun.

  Carine stood. “I’m sorry, sir. Sorry. I thought it was the dragon.”

  “Unfortunately not, madam.” He frowned, turning up to the sky. “I wish it were.”

  The wish turned her stomach, but she did not comment.

  “Is there any other work I can do downstairs or inside at least?” Just because Kavariel was late didn’t mean he wasn’t coming, and if he could destroy a city, he could certainly sink their ship. Not that being inside would protect her from burning, but it could shield her from constantly checking the skyline.

  “Why is that?”

  Carine studied his face. For a knight, especially one that had offered to shoot her off the ladder, he almost seemed friendly now. “I don’t want to be on the upper deck when the dragon flies over.”

  He gazed back at the sky fondly. “The dragon is a majestic beast.” The ridges and falls of the burned side of his face couldn’t conceal his peace.

  Carine thought of her sister’s curls. “Unless it gets close.”

  When he turned back, Alviar caught her staring. The centaur gestured to his burn. “Unless the dragon gets close? No, you’re wrong about that, Miss Shoemaker. Kavariel may have burned my face when I approached, but I wouldn’t take that moment back,” he told her, his voice lilting. “I heard the dragon call my name.”

  A pit for
med in her stomach, and even as the sun warmed the bright, bustling deck, Carine felt a chill. She had always thought that as much as the Esteners celebrated Kavariel, they still reserved a healthy dose of revulsion for the mayhem he brought. But Alviar revered the dragon despite his destruction.

  The knight’s mouth formed a thin line as Carine avoided his enthusiastic gaze. Finally, he said, “You may clear the dishes from Their Majesties’ lunch instead. I am about to give their afternoon lessons.”

  “Thank you for understanding, sir.”

  “But I warn you: do not let hiding become your routine. I will not allow it.”

  Carine frowned, not sure what he meant but not daring to ask. “Yes, sir,” she said simply, opening the door to the princes’ cabin while avoiding Alviar’s steady gaze.

  12 Safety Measures

  Prince David’s smile fell when his eyes landed on Alviar entering the room behind Carine. He ran from the table and grabbed a feather pen, hastily marking things down on a sheet of paper.

  “Nice try,” said Alviar, and David gave up trying to finish his work.

  “Is she joining us?” Prince Giles asked. Us apparently didn’t include His Highness Prince Marcel, who was lightly snoring again under the covers at the end of the room.

  “I’m just here to clear the table,” said Carine, blushing at the thought of sitting in. Her own education consisted of listening to local news in the taverns.

  To teach her to write, her parents took her around Esten to the murals where she was supposed to copy the couplets that accompanied the illustrations. She memorized the couplets and copied the illustrations instead. It had taken her a few extra years to learn to write, but she would never have traded those first etchings. It was how she learned to draw. The memory made her ache for her parents more strongly than since she’d left them.

  “Very well,” Alviar said. “Grab your books.”